08 March 2005

Skilled?

07:30 Tuesday 8 March 2005, home: Skilled?

This is my first attempt at posting to my weblog by e-mail. Being sceptical about anything much going right at present, I am merely sending the e-mail from the laptop that I am borrowing. However, if this process works, I shall try composing and sending an e-mail directly from my cellphone. It would give me some innocent/infantile satisfaction to post to my weblog from the car while held up in a traffic jam. It occurs to me, too, that I could browse my weblog from me cellphone. I am so slow to arrive at what is so obvious.
As I sit here furiously typing away before dashing from the house in order to arrive just on time at the workplace that will soon no longer be my workplace, I am feeling deeply touched that, in response to my earlier posting, Saije has expressed concern. There is, for me, something most strange about a stranger making a relational/emotional connection. Of course, this is what I do in my job: as a counsellor, I make relational/emotional connections with lots of strangers. However, I am rarely a recipient of this process. I feel supported by the experience.
In terms of work, a job perhaps, I feel as lost as ever. Working as a counsellor, knowing that I am at least passably good at what I do, I find counselling a fulfilling activity. I know that I am good at making relationships with strangers that are therapeutic for them. However, outside the counselling room, in the cold light of economic reality, what good is that skill? It may well be a skill transferable to other jobs and activities, but only in the context of those activities, such as social work, careers advice, youth engagement work
I know that I have some familiarity with computers. However, I cannot, in all truth, extend "familiarity" to "competence", not in terms of the job market. The truth is, outside the counselling (and counselling training) room, I am no more qualified, skilled or able than John Doe and Joe Soap. Therefore, unless I can find a counselling job, I shall be thrown to the lions of supermarkets and telephone call centres - not an appealing prospect.

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